A DIRTY BUT SURVIVABLE FAMILY FIGHT, OR AMERICA’S “SUICIDE”?

Many of us, the flow of messages to me proves, are focused on the confirmation or not of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to our United States Supreme Court.

To many, it seems our nation is devouring itself, mainly from and by a dramatically self-absorbed subgroup which refuses to be bothered with, much less follow, the rule of law.

As I will attempt to describe, this fight continuously reminds me of lessons from American history and culture.

The first of these has in recent years set up shop in my mind, and is derived from the famous comment of American Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry in our War of 1812 …

… “We have met the enemy, and he is ours.”

Thanks to the Commodore’s remark, cartoonist Walt Kelly drew and wrote his far more famous derivative for the nation’s first Earth Day celebration in 1970. Pogo, America’s favorite possum, thus commented on how trashy, literally, Americans had become …

… “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Now, my personal derivation is opposite Pogo’s …

… “We have met the enemy, and they’re NOT us.”

No, that is not a reference to illegal immigration, but rather to a diverse group which simply must – must!! – ceaselessly demonstrate how much they hate-despise-revile us.

The dividing line between us and them is our belief in – our dedication to – the rule of law.

The excrement show put on by some members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and their soldiers has set off many American alarms … ones far too long silent, I believe.

These who most threaten America are pitching a hate-filled fit because their own failures may cost them their half-century-or-so political control of our Supreme Court.

Consequently, the danger we face continues to grow. Unless Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed, these among us will loudly and proudly demonstrate – prove – that neither law nor shared, bedrock American beliefs any longer apply.

Thus, I yet again remember Abraham Lincoln’s Lyceum Address in 1838. Alarmed by St. Louis mob violence weeks earlier, his lecture included this foreboding warning to America:

“From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia…could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years.

No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.”

Mr. Lincoln feared that the “passion” traceable to the American victory in the Revolutionary War seven decades earlier was self-destructive. As he explained …

“… Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence.– Let those materials be moulded into general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws …”

In the process of checking our individual hearts and minds in these abysmal days, many of us must remember what it means when we “forget” to vote.

Not voting transfers determinative power to the wrong army in our most crucial fights.